Mermaids v. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and All Sane People Everywhere

EDIT: This post originally reported that LGBA USA does not have a website. That is not the case, as a reader helpfully pointed out to me. The website of the LGBA USA is here. Thanks for the correction!

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September 13, 2022

This post is available to paid subscribers only. As always, thank you for your generous support, which allows me to continue in the fight to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls and against the abolition of sex.

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The purpose of this post is to do my best to explain what is going on in the U.K. with respect to Mermaids’s attempt to get the LBG Alliance’s charitable status revoked, primarily for U.S. readers who may be unfamiliar with the situation. If I have got any of this wrong, I hope that someone with more expertise than I have will correct me. 

The best way to follow along is to follow Tribunal Tweets on Twitter and Substack. Things are shifting quickly, and it’s a bit difficult to keep up, so I am going to do my best to summarize the situation here. In doing so, I will inevitably omit certain details like the Cass Review and proposed changes to the U.K. Gender Recognition Act (GRA). Information about those important developments is widely available online.

The LGB Alliance (LGBA) is an organization established to advocate for the rights of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people to live free from discrimination or disadvantage based on their sexual orientation. The U.S. has its own chapter, and although it doesn’t have a website, you can find them on Facebook and Twitter. I have spoken with the leadership of the U.S. chapter and they very kindly invited me to talk with members of the organization about my book, The Abolition of Sex: How the ‘Transgender’ Agenda Harms Women and Girls. We had a delightful conversation.

Mermaids was established in 1995 to “support transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse children, young people and their families.” According to its website, it “has evolved into one of the UK’s leading LGBTQ+ charities, empowering thousands of people with its secure online communities, local community groups, helpline services, web resources, events and residential weekends.” The head of Mermaids is Susie Green, who took her 16-year-old son to Thailand to have his penis removed several years ago (a procedure that was, and is, illegal in the U.K. for minors). She talks about it all in this Tedx talk. 

When LGBA was granted charity status in 2021, Mermaids got really mad and took legal action to try to get that status revoked. The proceedings began on Monday, September 12 and from what I can tell (though I am not an expert), things appear to be going quite well for the LGBA.